When you need to rant...

Sorry if someone already brought this up, but it has irked me for a while:

Why do all the non-Disney CGI kids movies these days just have to have SNL cast members or popular stand up comedians doing the voices? Is it just supposed to be appealing to the parents or something? I just don't quite get it.

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I really don't mind it myself, even though I would love to see more professional VAs in animated films voice major characters. Comedians have some of the best kinds of voices when it comes to voice acting, as theirs are distinctive enough to work.

Sorry if someone already brought this up, but it has irked me for a while:

Why do all the non-Disney CGI kids movies these days just have to have SNL cast members or popular stand up comedians doing the voices?

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Yes, I've brought this up I don't know how many times before - it's almost as if it's some sort of an unwritten rule for animated movies now. Even animated series in some cases, such as how Kristen Wiig voiced Lola and Fred Armisen voiced Speedy Gonzales on THE LOONEY TUNES SHOW.

Disney helped with that trend. Not just SNL members, but comics in general. After their stand up careers ended, Disney put a number of them to work.
Cheech and Chong (separately, not together), and Denis Leary come to mind.

Robin Williams' stand up days were long behind him by the time Aladdin came along, but helped keep him in the limelight.

Gilbert Gottfried's stand up career never took off, and he was voted the worst SNL member ever. Way to go. Your crusty voice and lack of talent paid off in spades.

Tim Allen's success as Buzz Lightyear (and Santa) killed off his stand up career. I saw him back in 1990, before "Home Improvement", before hitting the big time. His star was rising fast. He was hysterically funny, but incredibly raunchy, un-PC, and maybe even a little drunk. (Still had me in stitches, laughing so hard my jaw hurt).
After the Toy Story movies, he tried his hand at stand-up again. There was a new generation of fans who brought their kids to his shows, but he had to sanitize his act so much, he gave it up after a while. Imagine the shock of the voice of Buzz Lightyear talking about women's parts. GASP!

George Carlin didn't have to worry. His voicing Fillmore in "Cars" was a side trip, then he went right back to telling people to go "F" themselves. Good ol' Georgie.

Disney helped with that trend. Not just SNL members, but comics in general. After their stand up careers ended, Disney put a number of them to work.
Cheech and Chong (separately, not together), and Denis Leary come to mind.

Robin Williams' stand up days were long behind him by the time Aladdin came along, but helped keep him in the limelight.

Gilbert Gottfried's stand up career never took off, and he was voted the worst SNL member ever. Way to go. Your crusty voice and lack of talent paid off in spades.

Tim Allen's success as Buzz Lightyear (and Santa) killed off his stand up career. I saw him back in 1990, before "Home Improvement", before hitting the big time. His star was rising fast. He was hysterically funny, but incredibly raunchy, un-PC, and maybe even a little drunk. (Still had me in stitches, laughing so hard my jaw hurt).
After the Toy Story movies, he tried his hand at stand-up again. There was a new generation of fans who brought their kids to his shows, but he had to sanitize his act so much, he gave it up after a while. Imagine the shock of the voice of Buzz Lightyear talking about women's parts. GASP!

George Carlin didn't have to worry. His voicing Fillmore in "Cars" was a side trip, then he went right back to telling people to go "F" themselves. Good ol' Georgie.

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I think DreamWorks really helped with that trend, too. Shrek had Mike Myers and Eddie Murphy as Shrek and Donkey respectively, along with some others as other characters. And don't forget that Bee Movie had Jerry Seinfeld as Barry. And Madagascar had Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, Sacha Baron Cohen, etc.

And also, it's not that I don't like hearing comedians' voices in kids movies, it's just that this has been on my mind for a while, and I wondered why they are in so many of them nowadays. But, like Oscarfan said, they are talented people who can play many roles, and I guess they gotta make money somehow...

Oh, and Cars had Larry the Cable Guy AND George Carlin, like Fuzzygobo mentioned. See what I mean? They're in tons of movies!

Robin Williams' stand up days were long behind him by the time Aladdin came along, but helped keep him in the limelight.

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I wouldn't say that - as a stand-up, Williams was still huge afterwords, and in fact, I feel that his 2000s work is his all-time best. Weapons of Self-Destruction is one of the funniest albums / specials I've ever heard or seen.

I'm pretty sure prof. VAs and animation staff are still used for scratch recordings, though there are many instances where the latter is kept because they did such a good job. Also helps that they save a ton of money on the side.

One of the best examples was with Edna Mode in The Incredibles. Brad Bird wanted Lily Tomlin to voice her, but when Bird tried to demonstrate to her what kind of voice he wanted, Tomlin suggested that he would do a better job himself. And that's what ended up in the final product.

That's one of things I liked about Brad Bird's movies: unlike other Pixar movies that reel in A-listers for the voices, Brad didn't necessarily follow with that standard; I always enjoyed the anecdote of him bringing that girl who voiced Violet in THE INCREDIBLES after hearing her on the radio, and she wasn't even an actor, she's a historical author (I've seen her books in stores before). Matter of fact, RATATOUILLE is an even bigger example: with the exception of Ian Holm as Chef Skinner, practically the rest of the voice cast was made up of B and C list celebrities.

As for animation staff members doing voices, I think DreamWorks is really the one who does that more than any other studio - the SHREK movies in particular, are a good example of this, how they do have A-listers voicing the main characters, but mostly their own animation staff voicing the supporting characters.

That's one of things I liked about Brad Bird's movies: unlike other Pixar movies that reel in A-listers for the voices, Brad didn't necessarily follow with that standard; I always enjoyed the anecdote of him bringing that girl who voiced Violet in THE INCREDIBLES after hearing her on the radio, and she wasn't even an actor, she's a historical author (I've seen her books in stores before).

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You know, I love how Hogarth in The Iron Giant was voiced by a real kid instead of a teenager or an adult pretending to be a kid. It made him sound a lot more believable, in my opinion.

Sorry if someone already ranted about this, but I just desperately need to get it out. This is something that annoys me even more than those kiddie Play Doh surprise egg opening videos.

I hate it when people, usually teenage to young adult girls, use YouTube to whine about how depressing/lonely/etc. their lives are. "OHMYGOD MAI BAE JUS BROKE UP WITH ME,,,IM LIKE SO DEPRESSED RITE NOW :'''(" Like, can you please just keep your sob story crap on Instagram or Tumblr or whatever?

I remember when YouTube was a place to share funny/interesting videos, but now it seems like it's just drama, drama, politics, and more drama. Oh, and did I mention drama?

What especially saddens me is that these drama-llamas get thousands to millions of viewers and subscribers for this stuff, while some people who make very neat and creative content get completely ignored.

Also, speaking of that last note, I've seen timelapse videos of people drawing and painting these absolutely gorgeous pictures, and many of them get no more than ten thousand views. I've also seen videos of anime/pony/Sonic bases getting crappily traced over in Microsoft Paint, and some of them get over a million views. That just makes no sense to me.

Sorry if someone already ranted about this, but I just desperately need to get it out. This is something that annoys me even more than those kiddie Play Doh surprise egg opening videos.

I hate it when people, usually teenage to young adult girls, use YouTube to whine about how depressing/lonely/etc. their lives are. "OHMYGOD MAI BAE JUS BROKE UP WITH ME,,,IM LIKE SO DEPRESSED RITE NOW :'''(" Like, can you please just keep your sob story crap on Instagram or Tumblr or whatever?

I remember when YouTube was a place to share funny/interesting videos, but now it seems like it's just drama, drama, politics, and more drama. Oh, and did I mention drama?

What especially saddens me is that these drama-llamas get thousands to millions of viewers and subscribers for this stuff, while some people who make very neat and creative content get completely ignored.

Also, speaking of that last note, I've seen timelapse videos of people drawing and painting these absolutely gorgeous pictures, and many of them get no more than ten thousand views. I've also seen videos of anime/pony/Sonic bases getting crappily traced over in Microsoft Paint, and some of them get over a million views. That just makes no sense to me.

"Boo hoo give me sympathy cause I'm a female and my boyfriend broke up with me and I have this special privilege of being the victim JUST because I'm a female and for all we know I was probably a real **** to my boyfriend but that's just fake news because I'm a girl and I treated him like a prince, waahhh! I also can't find any nice guys because I'm always friend zoning them and looking for jerks!"

So, this happened last summer. This dumb 15 year old girl tried stealing a candy bar from a store, she got caught and these guys held her down and the video SHOWS she was resisting arrest. It aggrivates me how people are trying to make her look like the victim when it's clear it only looks like they're wrestling her down cause she's f***ing resisting arrest.

I ended up sharing this on my Facebook page, and these two dumb girls, one who went to my high school, the other my college, get all butthurt when I pointed out citizens arrest in a state where it's LEGAL and she was stealing and they CLEARLY did not watch the video and are only butthurt because it's a girl. The one who went to my high school is a real ditz who ended up giving birth wayyyy too early and just broke up with her boyfriend at the age of 26 (gee, I wonder why? ) and the one who went to my college is just a real **** that has no clue what she's talking about half the time.

Frankly, and I do hate to pull the race card, but I feel like had this girl been the same caucasian-skinned color and was a boy, people would just be like "meh." And I love how the video stops right when police show up.

Reminds of a while back I shared an article about a girl who went to social media to complain about a company not hiring her because she asked about her potential salary during the interview, and everybody was siding with her. As I said, I was always taught that was an inappropriate question to ask during a job interview, because that's something your potential new employer will discuss with you if (s)he thinks you're right for the job and hires you in the first place.

In response to this, I remember when WORLD'S DUMBEST... showed a similar clip: there was a buff black guy in a 7-11 who tried to steal a Snickers bar, and three 7-11 employees tackled him, wrestled him to the ground, ripped all of his clothes off, bit him, kicked him across the store . . . and, well, yeah, the would-be thief did get arrested for theft, possession of stolen property, and resisting arrested, but one of the 7-11 employees was fired and the other two were forced to take mandatory retraining courses.